When a combat starts, if you are not aware of your opponents and they are aware of you, you’re surprised. The most often circumstance that comes up in battles is Surprise. There are conditions that also affect how initiative plays out in certain circumstances. This means they are much easier to hit until you have a chance to truly react to what is happening around you. If you haven’t gotten a chance to act yet, your characters are considered flat-footed, and haven’t gotten a chance to really react to what is happening yet. Then the DM moves down the line until everyone has either taken an action, or the encounter is at the end. The rolls are then ranked from highest to lowest numerically, and whoever is highest takes their action first. Most of the time the statistic is just going to be the Dexterity score, but there are some class abilities and feats that will boost it to a higher level. ![]() So when combat starts, everyone rolls a d20 and adds their Initiative statistic. A flat-footed character can’t make attacks of opportunity, unless he has the Combat Reflexes feat. Ĭharacters with uncanny dodge retain their Dexterity bonus to their AC and can make attacks of opportunity before they have acted in the first round of combat. Barbarians and rogues of high enough level have the uncanny dodge extraordinary ability, which means that they cannot be caught flat-footed. You can’t use your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) while flat-footed. If there is still a tie, the tied characters should roll to determine which one of them goes before the other.Īt the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed. If two or more combatants have the same initiative check result, the combatants who are tied act in order of total initiative modifier (highest first). In every round that follows, the characters act in the same order (unless a character takes an action that results in his or her initiative changing see Special Initiative Actions). Characters act in order, counting down from the highest result to the lowest. Each character applies his or her Dexterity modifier to the roll, as well as other modifiers from feats, spells, and other effects. An initiative check is a Dexterity check. Pathfinder 1e has a specific statistic called Initiative for use in Initiative Checks.Īt the start of a battle, each combatant makes an initiative check. Mechanics of Initiativeīoth Pathfinder Editions use very different rules for Initiative. ![]() The rules can get somewhat complex, so let’s do some breakdown to see how this works. Unfortunately Initiative can be hard to parse. Though almost any war game player will tell you that isn’t completely true. There is a statement when it comes to most tabletop content, “ He who strikes first, wins.” In Pathfinder, going first is very important. It is also about identifying threats and knowing how to react to them. It’s a great deal more than just who can react quickly, but that is a very important part of it. ![]() Initiative decides who goes first and who gets left in the dust. The iconic moment from westerns is a great example of Initiative in a fight.
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